Urban Honking

In the beginning of our love affair with suds, the known universe was limited to whatever our shoulder tapping foraging produced. Back then most of our decision making was determined by whatever 12 packs were stacked high with $8.99 price tags front and center. Fat Tire, the flagship beer from New Belgian Brewing Co., was […]

In Deutschland, Oktoberfest starts off with a bang: At noon on the festival’s opening day, the reigning mayor of Munich taps the first keg and officially proclaims ‘It is tapped,” over a 12-gun salute and the “beer corpses” start piling up. That is partying. In their spirit, Hot Knives and friends are throwing what we […]

Last week, after a leisurely French breakfast of pastries, pastis and a mushroom duxelles omelette with fries, we strolled the grounds of the famed Santa Monica farmers market like hunters and gatherers on an a.m. liquor buzz. Predictably the mushroom stand caught our eyes. We circled ’round and grasped at beautiful fungi while joking with […]

So once a year, the city of Seattle is bombarded with a wave of hyper-caffeinated industry folk wandering around downtown, Capitol Hill and eventually – the convention center. Why, you ask? Coffee Fest. At it’s most basic, CFest is a trade show that has all the pluses and minuses of any large gathering of people […]

Whoa, there’s a lot of stuff to catch up on. This will be a quickie. Stumptown is rolling out a sh*t-ton of new crop. What that means for us is – it’s cupping time! We met in the backroom of the FP North to meet up with Skip and his crazy big batch of Latins […]

Since the city is still inordinately hot due to it’s smoldering reality, we’ve been more than a little averse to turning on the oven. The mere though of cooking anything, while usually a welcome and blissful notion this week seems like some kind of seventh ring of hell type punishment. Instead we’re opting for cold […]

Los Angeles is on fire (again). Ash flakes on our windshields in the morning. Fire fighter worship on the airwaves. 747s filled with flame retardant goop swooping overhead. While some people pick up the pieces, we’re huddled close to our floor fans, exploiting weird and roomy sun tones for beer photography. Chances are slim that […]

Cookery is always about sharing, borrowing… yeah, even stealing. The first time we made seitan burgers we had no qualms lifting the recipe (more or less, give or take some smoked salt) from a more tested source. We flipped a barely smudged ‘Real Food Daily’ cookbook, that one in a long line of old housemates […]

Date: August 22, 2009 Time: 4:00 pm Location: Green Dragon Mike Merrill (MM) Josh Berezin (JB) We drank this too fast to get a picture… 92/1000: HUB Cascadian Dark JB: I love this! And our fries just came! MM: It’s very hoppy. JB: Is it? MM: Isn’t it? JB: It is hoppy, but no way […]

Date: August 22, 2009 Time: 4:00 pm Location: Green Dragon Mike Merrill (MM) Josh Berezin (JB) We drank this too fast to get a picture… 92/1000: HUB Cascadian Dark JB: I love this! And our fries just came! MM: It’s very hoppy. JB: Is it? MM: Isn’t it? JB: It is hoppy, but no way […]